Diaries

So I’ve always written these diaries as close to the actual event as possible, to capture my in-the-moment thoughts on the games. But with a bit of a down period on the horizon, I figured I’d take a crack at trying to recap games from the past. So this is the first in what I hope will be a semi-regular “Retro” diary series of famous Michigan games in the past. While I have my list, I welcome any suggestions in the comments. They can be football, basketball, hockey, anything you want, provided I can find a video of it somewhere online.

A Little History

Ah 1997, when Puffy was considered new on the scene...

As I’ve come to realize recently, there are LOTS of UM fans who were not born/young’ins when Michigan last won a national championship. Me, I was a junior in HS, so for some of you this is probably a baby talking to a slightly younger baby. But with these retro posts, I’m going to provide a bit of context, both as I remember it as well as from history, surrounding these games.

At the start of the season, expectations for Michigan were pretty tempered. Lloyd Carr was entering his third year, his first two seasons being 4-loss affairs that continued matching 8-4 years during Gary Moeller’s last two seasons. They were coming off a 3-point loss in the Outback Bowl to Alabama, played at Houlihan’s Stadium, known at the time as the “Big Sombrero” and now as a shameless attempt to capitalize on the lasting legacy of Patches O’Houlihan.

Anyway, Michigan seemed mired in an extended post-Bo doldrums, good enough to finish toward the bottom of the top-25 but certainly not an elite national team. Honestly, the one notable thing Carr’s teams did consistently was upset OSU on their way to undefeated seasons, twice beating OSU when the Buckeyes were ranked #2 in the country. Carr absolutely owned John Cooper, which on one hand was glorious to watch when it happened but also infuriating given how Michigan was still usually headed to some crappy mid-Florida bowl each year.

Michigan entered the year ranked #14, one of those gentleman rankings bluebloods like UM got each season because sports writers were REALLY lazy in the 90’s and apparently every season started with a hit of the old reset button on the Playstation. Their first game was against Colorado, returning to the scene of the crime. But Kordell Stewart, Rashaan Salaam, and Michael Westbrook were long gone, and Michigan absolutely shut down the Buffs 27-3. Baylor was equally plastered the following week, and then Notre Dame put up an admirable fight before falling.

Michigan finally was on the road to open the B1G season against IU, and the less said about that game the better for the Hoosiers. Northwestern followed with similar results, and all of a sudden Michigan was 5-0 having given up a total of 26 points(!), 14 of which came against ND.

And then Iowa happened. If Twitter had existed during this era, it would have been a bloodbath in that first half. Iowa had a solid offense and an underrated defense, and ended the first half with a flourish, picking off a Griese pass with a bit over 2 minutes to go, scoring quickly, and then pinning UM deep again. With about 20 seconds to go, everyone just hoped Michigan would go into the half down 6 and regroup. Then Tim Dwight caught a deep punt at midfield, made basically everyone miss twice, and scored a TD to send Iowa into the half up 14. It was dinosaur punting when those beasts plodded across the Midwest in droves, but for the rest of the half every time Dwight touched the ball (he nearly took a kickoff back as well) you could hear diamonds being made in the tightened sphincters of UM fans in the stands. Luckily, Michigan’s defensive line really stiffened and the offense did just enough to pull that game off. But Iowa was the type of game Michigan seemed to blow every year, and after that escape you could see the excitement really start to build around this squad.

MSU came next and, got, well…

Minnesota was steamrolled the following week, and then came the huge showdown at #2 Penn State. The Nittany Lions had joined the conference in 1992, went undefeated in 1994, and began 1997 as the #1 team in the country. They entered the game undefeated as well, and while the Fightin’ Paternos hadn’t looked dominant all year, it was still a team with a number of NFL picks (though they all had disappointing careers to varying degrees), including the #1 and #2 selections in 2000 (Courtney Brown and LaVar Arrington) and the #5 in 1998 (Curtis Enis).

Michigan absolutely demolished them, to a degree that was, honestly, shocking given the opponent and the fact the game was at Beaver Stadium. Michigan led 24-0 at halftime, 34-0 heading into the 4th, and it probably wasn’t even that close. To say fans were excited after the win would be a bit of an understatement. With that win, Michigan ascended to #1 in the country, and followed it up with another quality win at Wisconsin, who were without 1999 Heisman Trophy winner Ron Dayne due to injury, though Michigan had consistently stymied Dayne during his collegiate years.

With all the preliminaries out of the way, #4 OSU came to the Big House looking to return the favor as spoiler of Michigan’s perfect season, themselves riding high after having only lost to then-#1 PSU, and featuring one of the best WRs in college football in David “proto-HGH enthusiast” Boston. The war of words started early between him and Woodson, culminating in one of those on-field fights where guys threw hands but nobody was ejected because people understood that human beings can get some aggression out on a football field without worrying how it would affect the children!

Oh yeah, and Woodson also cemented his Heisman Trophy season with an iconic return.

It also led to one of my favorite Sports Illustrated covers ever.

With that win, it was on to Pasadena and the Washington State Cougars, which is where I start doling out the Bests and the Worsts.

Best: Past With a Blast

I'll start off by saying that this was one of the weirdest f*cking Michigan games to watch, especially 17-odd years later.* I’ll obviously get into particular elements in greater detail, but watching these older games, you are struck with just how much the college game has evolved even in the last 10-15 years. Now, I know that is a pretty obvious statement, so let me explain.

Take, for example, the speed of the game. Initially I thought everyone was just slow because they were less athletic, that college football was still trying to escape the vortex of “traditional” football gameplans that were closer to attrition than strategy, like two warring armies meeting in the middle of a field and the side with more functioning limbs left at the end was the victor. But that isn’t precisely true, at least in this game; both Michigan and Washington State had gamechangers on both sides of the field, and on a per-play basis there didn’t seem to be some massive athleticism gap (the players did seem smaller than today’s athletes, though at least part could be due to optical differences from weird camera angles and the style of uniforms).

But the difference between this championship game and the one we just saw between Oregon and OSU was how deliberate everyone played. The Cougars oftentimes lined up with 4+ WRs in the game, and Michigan’s base defense was typically a 4-2-5 with liberal amounts of blitzing. But at no point did WSU really push the pace, instead huddling after most plays, allowing Michigan’s defense to get in the necessary substitutions and get set. Ryan Leaf did look to the sidelines and made adjustments at various points, but after a steady diet of Oregon, Baylor, Rich Rod, and Urban these past 10 years, it’s kind of weird to watch a high-powered offense (WSU was #2 in scoring, #4 in passing) just walk up to the line.

And don’t get me started on Michigan’s offense in this game (and really all year). I kind of glossed over it in the recap, but this team ran an offense I could best describe as “don’t screw this up”, which was a little weird given how much talent the team actually had on that side of the ball. It was Mike DeBord’s first year as OC, so if you thought he was innovative in his later years you’d be even more surprised how conservative his playcalling was. Chris Howard led the team in rushing and receiving, and Jerame Tuman and Tai Streets tied for the non-backfield lead in catches and TDs at 24 and 4, respectively. Michigan ran the ball, ran it again, and then either threw a pass out to a RB or Tuman on third down. Once defenses started sucking in, maybe they’d try to beat you deep on playaction or with a bootleg (as they did twice this game). But this team had 17 scoring drives (15 TDs and 2 FGs) of 70+ yards this year, and with few exceptions you could have timed them with a sundial. Yes, Griese set passing records in terms of attempts and completions this year, but with a YPA of 7.4 and a 14:5 TD/INT ratio, it’s safe to assume those weren’t directed very far downfield. In other words, this was a Cialis commercial for the blue beards who grew up praising “3 yards and a cloud of dust”.

And Michigan’s defense, as it had done all year, just ground WSU down throughout the game. I’ll get to it in a bit more detail below, but I thought this was one of the finest defensive lines Michigan has fielded in recent history; not the most talented, but just a bunch of guys who complemented each other perfectly. Couple that with an incredibly speedy LB core (including Dhani Jones and Ian Gold) and that terrifyingly-good secondary, and it was a surreal game to watch given just how fast college football has become.

* Oh, and on a 6-inch phone screen with super-grainy "ripped-from-VHS-to-Youtube" quality, on the 2/3 trains during my commute both to and from work, with a notepad in my hand while a guy with a pet rat hanging out in his jacket is looking at me with an expression that loosely translates to "what's up with THIS weirdo" as I furiously scribbled into said notebook about an AOL commercial (oh yeah, we'll get there).

Worst: The Luck of the Wolverines

It’s always hard to tell looking back how much of it was cosmic forces and how much of it was good defense and the inherent vagaries of the sport, but UM was very lucky they didn’t fall behind WSU early on in this game. This shouldn’t come as a shock to anyone who watched Carr’s teams throughout the years, but all-everything Michael Black + 4+ WRs wasn’t an equation he was good at solving. Though WSU only scored 7 points in the first half, it could have been much worse had Woodson not had a nice pick of Leaf in the endzone to halt a drive, and then Leaf miss another wide-open TD by inches. WSU WRs also suffered from a number of drops early on, and there were a number of plays where multiple WSU guys where open deep in the middle of the field as the Michigan secondary lost track of them. In fact, I think one of the biggest breaks in the game was Black going off the field late in the first half with a thigh injury, as he never really returned (he had one carry I believe in the 3rd quarter before shutting it down) and WSU’s offense definitely took a step back with Gilmore as the lead back.

And on offense, Griese looked very frazzled to start, throwing a pick and generally looking out of sorts, while the playcalling was basically run, run, don’t turn it over, punt. Michigan scored on a beautiful pass 53-yard pass to Tai Street off playaction, but otherwise that first half was one that could have gotten away from Michigan pretty quickly, and you could sense they knew they had dodged a bullet late in the half and into the second as the team calmed down and started to impose its will on both sides of the ball.

Best: Easily Football-Offended Lloyd Carr

To say that Carr was unhappy with the offense Mike Price was running, at least based on the numerous snarls and dismissive looks ABC cut to on the sidelines, would be an understatement. We all know how Carr had a very specific view of how football should be played and bristled at the notion of deviating significantly from that, but watching Carr try to process the idea WSU would go 5-wide and no backs and reflexively recoil was mesmerizing. I don’t know how to describe it beyond the physical manifestation of every person online who says “the spread won’t work in the Big 10!”, plastered on the head of one of the most successful coaches in college football history.

Now, Lloyd Carr would never be described as having a particularly warm demeanor on the sidelines, whether it be during handshakes with other coaches or answering dumb questions from sideline reporters, so on one hand it shouldn’t be surprising he seemed bothered by it all. And this isn’t a judgment call on him; sure, in 2015 you see an immense amount of offensive nuance, especially in the passing game, but in 1997 nobody was really pushing the pace of the game consistently, especially throwing the ball. Sure, you had your BYU’s and Florida’s finding success through the air throughout the years, but only second-tier teams like Kentucky and Purdue were beginning to exploit speed mismatches in addition to using 4+ receiver formations.

I remember watching this game and being amazed WSU had a 1,000 yard rusher AND Ryan Freaking Leaf on the same team, but it definitely seemed like an outlier situation and not the direction offenses were going. The conventional wisdom was you won with talent and execution. Hell, Nebraska went undefeated this year with a QB barely completing 50% of his passes for a 5:4 TD:INT ratio because they averaged 5.5 rushing TDs A GAME! And while he’d never say it publicly, I’m sure the word “gimmick” popped quite a few times in the video sessions leading up to this game. Carr’s view of acceptable offenses expanded somewhat as his career unfolded, but this was definitely one that seemed to take Carr back a bit.

Worst: And Easily Offensive-Playcalling-Offended BronxBlue

I’m going to provide a list of notable offensive players on UM’s roster in 1997.

Jeff Backus

Steve Hutchinson

Jon Jansen

Brian Griese

Chris Howard

Anthony Thomas

Tai Streets

Jerame Tuman

Aaron Shea

Charles Woodson

Tom Brady**

Now, I know all those guys weren’t THOSE GUYS at the same time in 1997, but one of the hallmarks of Carr’s offenses was playing sound, low-variability football whenever possible. When the stakes got higher or the team was trailing, he would oftentimes loosen the reigns a bit, resulting in games like New Math and his final game. But despite oftentimes having an overwhelming talent advantage, the offenses seemed pathologically incapable of putting it on the opponent’s face except in rare circumstances. Hell, look at the 2000 Michigan roster and then remember that that team put up 20 points to 6-6 UCLA, 14 on 5-6 MSU, and a last-second 13 against 9-4 Wiscy. Yes, they scored 51 in a losing effort to NW, but…

So yeah, watching this game I was reminded how infuriating it was to follow this team at times. While Michigan’s defenses were typically some of the best in the country, the offenses found ever-more-stupefying ways to waste elite talent, or at the very least not beat the doors off of non-baby seals most years. On both of Michigan’s long TD passes, it was because WSU’s suspect corners couldn’t keep up with Michigan’s WRs. It was clear to me, to the people watching at home and stands, to Bob and Keith in the booth, that Michigan could throw against WSU, and yet it was only when the Cougars took a 13-7 lead in the second half did Michigan start to loosen up a bit on offense. And once they did, they went from a team that couldn’t move the ball for a half to one that converted 9/11 3rd-downs in the 2nd half and racked up close to 250 yards.

I guess my other pet peeve that came up during this game was the Thomas Edison-level telegraphing the offense did when they inserted certain players into the game, such as Woodson on offense (Calvin Bell in 2001 was the platonic ideal of this behavior). Because Charles Woodson was an amazing football player, Carr wasn’t afraid to let him touch the ball a couple of times a game on offense, usually on end-arounds, reverses, or deep balls. The problem lied in that when Woodson walked onto the field, it was rarely to do anything else but be the A1 focus of the play. Not as a decoy, a blocker, anything other than the guy who was going to get the ball unless you triple-covered him. As the season rolled on, defenses figured out that the guy killing them on defense was pretty good, and that when he walked out to catch a ball you might as well send two guys his way. In this game, Woodson was on the field for something like 5 plays, resulting in 2 runs, 1 catch, one under-thrown bomb, and one sorta-in-his-vicinity incompletion.

Again, I don’t want to crap too much on a guy who won a NC, but watching this janky offense in 1997 after having just lived through the Hoke era was jarring in how little had changed.

** Yeah, yeah, he was a freshman. I know.

Best: Charles MF Woodson

I don’t need to tell you that Charles Woodson had swagger coming out of his ears. Dude was the first primary-defensive player to win the Heisman, absolutely shut down halves of the field, and just was magical to watch. You’d hear people talk up the merits of guys like Dre Bly, Champ Bailey, and Shawn Springs, and yet nobody could deny how dominant Woodson was as a defensive player. He was fast enough to keep up with any WR, yet big enough to help on the run and serve as a devastating situational pass rusher. Heck, he hit Leaf a couple times in this game, including one on a delayed blitz that nearly led to a pick. He carried himself like a star but backed it up at every occasion. When you watched him you saw a guy who was evolutionarily “better” than most of the guys on the field, and you could take 1997 Charles Woodson and drop him in 2015 and he’d still be one of the best corners in the game. Just a dominant player.

Best: The Rest of the Defense

Obviously Woodson is the name everyone remembers from that unit, plus the record-setting PPG allowed (6.18 before the bowl), but that entire defense was chock full of brilliance. Marcus Ray was one of the better safeties in Michigan history, and on most other teams James Whitley would have been a #1 DB. And while he did seem to have trouble at times in coverage, Tommy Hendricks tackled with a vengeance usually reserved for fathers looking for lost daughters in movies. In particular, there was one tackle on a WSU WR that you seemed to wake up both sides of the field.

The LBs were headlined by Sam Sword, Dhani Jones, and Ian Gold, the latter two having pretty good pro careers in addition to being great college players. Gold and Jones were the type of sideline-to-sideline guys who could play in 2015 without much issue, and Sword currently sits #3 in career tackles at UM. All three gave Michigan immense flexibility in how they ran their defense, highlighted by the fact Lloyd Carr and Jim Herrmann were willing to roll out a 4-2-5 in this game without batting an eye.

I mentioned this earlier, but the defensive line really was one of the best you’d see. Rob Renes was a Sporting News AA at nose tackle as a senior, Josh Williams was stout against the run, and both Glenn Steele and James Hall could just squeeze the air out of a pocket. Again, it wasn’t full of stars (though everyone save Renes has decent NFL careers), but they might as well have added a “Right to Rush 4” patch on their jerseys because they absolutely disrupted offensive gameplans. When Ryan Leaf really struggled in this game, it was when he was under intense pressure from 4-5 guys, and a major reason he never really got on track was because he was always picking Wolverines out of his teeth.

Worst: 99-yards!

You know how I just gushed over this defense? Well, to prove that nobody’s perfect, it also gave up a 99-yard TD drive in the 3rd quarter that was just one big WTF. Leaf fumbled the snap on first down, yet WSU recovered. On the next play, he threw a kinda-duck for a first down where the aforementioned Hendricks just smacked the WR moments after the ball got to him. From that point on, it was Michigan jumping offsides, letting WRs get between coverages, and whiffing on a reverse that you could see coming as soon as the ball was snapped. Overall I thought the defense looked pretty good in the second half, but for that one drive it was ugly.

Worst: Concussions? Nah!

This being 1997, you saw (a) a bunch of really stiff shots on WRs and QBs that would absolutely have been flagged in the game today, and (b) lots of homespun references to slobberknockers and bell-ringing that, yeah, feels kinda icky given what we now know about concussions. In particular, Glenn Steele absolutely obliterated Ryan Leaf on one play, yet nobody seemed particularly worried about Leaf’s health or current capacity to tie his shoes. I’m not saying Ryan Leaf’s subsequent life struggles are due to anything that happened in this game, but seeing how hard some of these guys were hitting him, I wouldn’t be surprised if it turns out at least some of his issues trace back to the beatings he took on the field. It was just weird to see some of these borderline-dangerous hits on both sides get glossed over.

Best: Chris Howard

He’ll never be remembered as a particularly great back at UM, but Chris Howard was the perfect player for Lloyd Carr’s offense. For large swaths of this game, it was Howard busting out first-down runs with Cougars bearing down, or turning simple swing passes into big gains. As I noted earlier he led the team in both rushing and receiving on the year, and in this game he rushed for 70 yards and added another 13 on two catches, including a nifty pickup on 3rd down in the first half that helped Michigan get back some field position. He was also a pretty solid blocker as far as I could tell, picking up blitzes and helping to give Griese some time on a couple of big throws in the 4th quarter.

Worst: Bad Anthony Thomas

I’m honestly not sure how widespread this sentiment was in 1997, but Anthony Thomas was one of the most infuriating backs for me to watch early on in his career. He had a tantalizing amount of talent; just a brute who could outrun you as well as (seemingly) run you over. And yet he had some missing trait, some fatal flaw that seemed to hold him back. Much like Derrick Green now, Thomas was a load who somehow still went down at first contact. In this game, he had one nice run for something like 10 yards and then 6 more rushes that went for 0-2 yards. Runs where a LB would clip his legs and he’d go down in a heap. I’m not sure if it was his running style (he was pretty upright), balance issues, lower-body strength, Michigan RB Disliking Gods, or what, but it really wasn’t until his senior year in 2000 when he put it all together, at which point he absolutely demolished guys and was, briefly, a star in the NFL. Chris Perry followed a similar trajectory while he in A2, and so if you are one of those people bothered by Green’s inability to be the Mooseback he seemed destined for a couple years ago, Thomas looms out there as the potential upside to a guy Figuring It Out. But yeah, watching this game brought back some bad memories for me.

Worst: Come On Man

At one point in the first half of this game, Lloyd Carr punted from the WSU 38. The resulting kick netted him 15 yards. That is all.

Best: No 1997 News Cycle

So Bob Griese, father of Brian Griese, and Keith Jackson, WSU alum and former Cougars radio announcer, were calling the Rose Bowl. In 1997, this was noted in a couple reports leading up to the game but that was it. In 2015, I can’t imagine how many talking heads would have chimed in about the potential “conflicts of interest” involved in two grown men calling a game in which they might have very minor rooting interests. Remember Larry Fitzgerald’s semi-biased coverage of his son in a pretty obscure publication leading up to the Super Bowl some years ago, and how big a deal that became relative to its importance? If one of Kirk Herbstreit’s sons ever winds up playing for an NC and he’s on the call, I fully expect Twitter to just melt down under the deluge of complaints.

In this game, Jackson made one quip to Griese about him not knowing Brian could throw the ball that far on a deep completion to (I believe) Street, but otherwise they acted like two professionals, capable of calling a game objectively despite rooting interests in certain outcomes. It was refreshing.

Best: Quick Hits

Here are a couple of quick points that don’t need their own section.

This was the internet in 1997. You went to AOL and entered a keyword to search because the idea of dedicated URLs was still pretty “new”. I was amazed Prodigy hadn’t gotten the business first.

Ryan Leaf was terrifying in college. I know he was a colossal bust in the pros, but he had a cannon of an arm, was reasonably accurate for the time, and was deceptively fast for a guy his size. It’s crazy in retrospect, but he looked like like a worthy challenger to Peyton Manning as the #1 overall draft selection, and even in this game he played with a fearlessness and toughness that really helped keep WSU in the game against a more talented UM squad.

Apparently both of these teams were some of the most-penalized teams in the country that season. It amazes me that any Lloyd Carr team would play that cavalierly, but I guess it was a different era in more ways than one.

Russell Athletics were the official jersey sponsor of Washington State. I can only imagine that they bought their warm-ups from Eastbay.

Worst: The Pass Interference that Wasn’t Called

If you hear people complaining about this game, what they usually argue about is the weird clock management at the end of the game wherein the clock ran out as WSU spiked the ball with 2 second left on the clock. What tends to come up less often is the absolutely terrible offensive PI that allowed the Cougars to even get to midfield. It was third down, under 30 seconds to go in the game, and WSU is deep in their own territory. Ryan Leaf drops back to pass, scrambles a bit, and then just heaves the ball downfield. Look at the screenshot above, and understand that as the ball started to descend it was coming up short. Woodson slowed down to pick it off, and Taylor just shoved him out of the way, in front of at least 1 official, and pulled it in. Jackson thought it was a pick, and then both him and Griese vocally complained that it was obvious offensive PI. It was insanity when it happened, and on review is even more amazing that it wasn’t called or that Woodson didn’t absolutely lose his mind.

Had Michigan lost this game, that would have gone down as one of the worst calls in Michigan history. As it is, it is just an amazingly incompetent one.

Worst: Hucking Fornhuskers

We all know what happened following this game. Nebraska plastered Peyton Manning’s Tennessee Volunteers in the Orange Bowl the next day, one of the many arrows in the “Peyton Manning couldn’t win the big one” quiver that people had against him for most of his early career. Coupled with Tom Osborne’s retirement, the Cornhuskers somehow leapfrogged Michigan to split the national title, winning the Coach’s Poll in what felt like a retirement gift to Osborne. Discussion of the Flea Kicker against Mizzou is treated as sour grapes for some reason, but let it be said that Nebraska was a very good team that chewed people up on the ground but was a pretty terrible team throwing the ball. It would have been a great game to see, and the controversy led to the creation of the BCS championship game.

****

So I hope you enjoyed this diary. If you have a game you’d like to see me review, by all means post it below.

Ok folks, sorry for the long absence from the posting world. The last two home football games were just not worth writing about for much the same reason that they really weren’t worth UFR-ing—namely, basically everyone that was responsible for any student section maladies is now gone. Sure, yes, Brandon was gone, but not with enough time for anything really to change. At any event, I’ll eventually get around to some closing thoughts that might still be relevant come next year, but for this article we’re going to talk about a different student section, namely that of Yost.

I’ve had hockey season tickets for a number of years, and in that time, Yost has always been a wonderful, fantastic, electric atmosphere. There have, however, been some up and downs. The renovation was a mixed bag: brighter, cheerier motif, more room, I think the foot stomping is more effective; however, the top rows have bad visibility, and the student section is smaller. Some of the other “recent” changes:

Moving the student section around the bend: New this year, the student section extends from about Section 19 (behind the home bench) to Section 14 (south wall next to the band). Generally speaking, this is bad. The student section used to extend along the entire east wall (minus the band). This means less raucous Yost-worthy fans near the other net, it also means that the student section is no longer contiguous (more on that later). The reasons are likely Brandonian: side seats can probably be sold for more than those behind the nets. The only benefit I’ve seen is that it makes it marginally easier to get the “GO” “BLUE” chant started by bouncing between 17 and 14 rather than across the ice.

Too damn much music. Not much to add here, choir.

Moving the opposing parents behind the visiting bench: This is the one I want to particularly deep dive into. This has been unequivocally the most detrimental to the fan experience at Yost since I’ve been there.

Making the student section just plain smaller: If I had to guess, this is a money issue, but not the cost of hockey tickets. I believe this is a cost of football tickets issue. If football tickets are stretching the bank, other season tickets are the first thing to go. Hopefully we’ll see some rebound here next year.

Why the parents being there is so bad

Let’s revisit contiguity. The reason that Section 17 (the heart of the student section) is so great is because everyone is clumped together; they can feed off each other; they can exchange cheers, ideas, etc. Imagine trying to start the wave in the Big House if there were a section of OSU fans in between two parts of the student section. Yeah, that isn’t working. For the same reason that moving part of the student section to the other side of the band is bad, so is putting the opposing parents behind the visiting bench. Worse, the (albeit minimal) upside doesn’t exist because the split up sections face the same way. So now we essentially have a core student section that maxes out at a full Section 16 and 17, which is loud and proud, but fundamentally limited in size. Compare that to when I started going to hockey games, where for the big games you could expect to fill the whole east wall with people who were pretty into it.

Also there’s utilization. Even when we’re playing teams that are nearby like MSU or OSU the parent section is half empty and the students aren’t even allowed to sit in the periphery. That is a full-blown, fully mapped DMZ that you better keep stepping through and not stop. So now we have students that don’t fit in Section 17, stuck above row 10 in Section 18 and a bunch of needlessly empty seats below them. And for what? So these parents can have some elbow room to look at their sons’ backs? That’s the area they want to be filming—they want to show the crazy passion fans have in promo materials. And now they take a picture and it looks like the student section abruptly fades to empty silver bleachers. Great planning that is.

Finally, it is just a fundamentally bad idea that has actually led to altercations and fisticuffs in the stands. I would love to have been at the meeting where this was pitched.

“Alright team, what if we move the opposing parents into the student section?”

“Dave, that’s insane.”

“I regret to inform all of you that Phillip will no longer be working with us. Does anyone else have thoughts about the move?”

<Pause>

“Seeing none, meeting adjourned.”

But actually, what type of sane human being hears that and doesn’t immediate respond “that’s actually insane”? Since the move, I’ve seen mortified parents trying to shield their children from the “cya” cheer. I’ve seen a UMass-Lowell parent push a UM student down the stairs. And just this evening I watched an OSU parent come up and jab a student in the chest. Fortunately—I suppose—I was close enough to observe the whole incident. From what I could tell the “instigation”, if you want to call it that, was that the student observed (albeit quite loudly) that OSU’s goal to make it 5-2 UM with like 30 seconds left would have no bearing on the outcome of the game (I must admit, he did have a point). What baffled me though was that this parent was not immediately escorted from the building, nor even the section. Worse still, event staff got on this student’s case and threatened to kick him out of future games if there were any complaints (despite nearby students asserting that he hadn’t done anything wrong). To be fair, most of my experiences with event staff folks have been positive, but I’ve also had a number like this, where one event staffer can sour the whole experience for the fans, which is a real shame.

Now, were there other things said that may have irritated the opposing parents? Probably. It is the Yost student section after all. But, really, that’s the point. Yost is a great place because the fans, especially the students, are insane and make it a loud and intimidating place to play. Putting the opposing parents in the middle of the students is asking for trouble, and that request has been answered too many times. It’s time to undo this tragedy of basic judgment and move the parents somewhere else.

So after the win against OSU, I've decided to take my first bit of optimism about Michigan basketball this year and blow it way out of proportion. I'm asking the big question:

Can we make the tournament?

Obviously for this exercise I'm going to assume we don't win Big Ten Tournament, because if we do, we're in no matter what. So I'm looking purely at an at-large bid.

We are currently 14-13 after the win. But since we're not winning the Big Ten Tourney in this exercise, that means we have at least one more loss on our resume. This means we'll have to be a 14 loss team looking for an at-large bid.

How often do 14 loss teams get at-large bids?

To answer this I looked at every at-large team's record that has recieved a bid since 2007. The results are very interesting.

In only 2 years in that time span has team with 14 losses recieved an at-large bid.

2008

19-14 Arizona was a 10 seed.

2011

20-14 Marquette was an 11 seed

19-14 Tennessee was a 9 seed

19-14 Penn State was a 10 seed

19-14 USC was an 11 seed

19-14 Michigan State was a 10 seed.

Wow. I really wasn't expecting many 14 loss teams to have gotten at-large bids, and I was pretty correct except for 2011.

Looking at it, 2011 must have had an incredibly weak bubble if that many 14 loss teams made the tourney. I don't think we can expect that weak of a bubble this year, and it will be discussed further down in the post.

On the plus side since 2011, an extra 3 at large bids have been added, so it will be a little easier to make the tournament.

Michigan

So after looking at historical precedent, we need to see how Michigan compares. As I said earlier, our record is 14-13 (7-8). If we're looking for an at-large, we're going to essentially be at least 14 loss team however.

Looking above, it's pretty clear that the odds are slim as it is, but if we lose another game we have 0 chance at an at large. This means winning out in the regular season. That would put as at 17-13 (10-8), with wins @ Maryland, @ Northwestern, and home vs Rutgers.

In conference, we would probably finish right in the middle of the pack, getting a first round bye. For Big Ten Tournament purposes, a 10-8 record, winning % wise, would be the 7 seed, so for simplicities sake I'll put us there, and leave everyone else where they are now.

In the first round we would play the 10 seed who also has a first round bye, which in this case would be Nebraska. We beat Nebraksa 58-44 in our only regular season matchup.

After that we would play the second seed, who has a double bye. In this case, that would be Maryland, although Purdue has the same conference record currently.

Then, assuming seeds hold, we would be playing the 3 seed in the semi-finals, which would be Purdue.

Finally, assuming a loss in the finals (since in this scenario we are not getting an auto-bid), we would probably lose to the 1-seed Wisconsin. Our final record would be 20-14.

The Conclusion

So after all of this typing and time I've wasted, what's the final takeaway?

Well, I'm sure you could have guessed this, but if Michigan wants to make the tourney, they're gonna have to win the Big Ten Tourney. Even assuming Michigan does finish out how I assumed above, Michigan would at best be a last 4 in type team, which does not bode well.

Also, this post is assuming that Michigan wins @ Maryland, which no team except for Virginia has done, so good luck with that. And expecting this team to win 7 straight for any other purposes besides me avoiding studying is setting yourself up for disappointment.

Reasons to be Semi-Optimistic

If you do want to hold out hope, however, here are a few things that might make you feel a bit better:

A 14 loss team can make the tournament. It's happened before, so 14 losses isn't the kiss of death for an at-large bid. It makes it very tough however.

The bubble isn't too strong. Granted, I don't think it ever is, but UCLA, for example, only has one less loss than Michigan, only has one RPI top 25 win, and is projected to be in the tournament.

If Michigan finishes as assumed above, that would mean we would be 8-2 in our last 10 with an 8 game win streak. The committee likes to look at how you finish, and that's the best way Michiga could hope.

Along those lines, the injuries to Walton and Levert. I know it's weird to think of those as positives, but they could be for Michigan's chances. Whenever a team suffers key injuries, the committee wants to see how they do without the missing players. If Michigan ends strongly, they can say the inuries to Walton and Levert were the cause for the poor play, and once the team had experience playing without those two, they finished very strongly.

Our bad losses aren't THAT bad. Losing to NJIT and EMU are clearly part of Michigan's problems right now on the resume. But you saw USC's resume in 2011 when they made, and there are teams projected in the tournament right now with more losses than Michigan against sub RPI 100 teams, so the loses can be overcome.

We'd essentially be a 13 loss team. I know this is weird because I've been saying we're a 14 loss team the entire time, but the Big Ten Tournmanet Final ends a few hours before the field is announced. By that time, the committe has most likely made their decisions, so while losing that game would make us a 14 loss team, the committee would be evaluating us as a 13 loss team. And you can see from past years, 13 vs 14 losses makes a big difference. We might get lucky and by the time that 14th loss comes, their minds will have already been made up, and if that's the case, it's good news for us.

Your Rooting Interests

If Michigan has any chance at an at-large bid, the following things are what you want to happen

Win @ Maryland. While winning the next 7 is going to be hard no matter what, this next game @ Maryland is by far the most difficult. If we can somehow pull the upset, this gets that much more realistic.

Root against all bubble teams, especially the ones mentioned above. For obvious reasons.

Root for Michigan State or Indiana to get the 3 seed. At this point, we need wins against as many top teams as possible. Our most likely route in the Big Ten Tourney runs through the bottom half, against the 2 and 3 seeds. Of the teams left battling for those seeds, Purdue would be the least helpful for our resume, and they are currently the 3 seed. Root for Indiana or MSU to take that spot, as beating them would be a lot more helfpul and give us an extra RPI Top 50 or 25 win.

Root for Penn State ad Nebraska. Their RPI ranks right now are 106 and 108 respectively right now. Getting them in the top 100 would be another benefit to our resume.

Northwestern isn't the only conference school to have seen a significant student riot back in the good ole days, and the U-M fraternity numbskulls who trashed the resorts up north last month aren't the only U-M students to have gotten seriously out of hand. On Monday, March 16, 1908, the old Star Theater on Washington Street was the site of the what is probably the worst student riot in U-M history. Curiously, there is more than one account for the origin of the disturbance, and one of them has a connection to Michigan football.

This is the front page account from the Cornell Sun:

"STUDENT RIOT AT MICHIGAN.

Two Thousand Go on Rampage and Demolish Theater despite the Police-Militia Called Out.
Ann Arbor, Mich., March 17.

Two thousand Michigan undergraduates battered down the Star five-cent theatre here last evening, avenging an attack on a student in the College of Forestry there Saturday night and ending their attack on the building with a riot in which police, firemen and finally the militia took part. Twenty-two undergraduates spent the night in jail.

News of the 'trouble on Saturday night, when a special policeman inflicted painful wounds on a student who was said to have been the cause of slight disturbances, spread among the undergraduate body on Sunday and Monday and last evening reprisals against the theatre were planned. Marching through the student rooming district shouting "All out for the Star Theatre," the procession of students were joined by hundreds of others who poured out of the houses on the line of march. A crash of glass, as a brick tore through the front doors of the theatre, announced the arrival of the students and with a fusillade of rocks and clubs, pandemonium broke loose. Rails completed the destruction of the front of the building, the piano, seats and moving picture machine went by the board with the rest of the wreckage while the police, powerless in the hands of the mob, were not even able to retain possession of their helmets and uniforms.

In the height of the uproar, President Angell and several of the University deans appeared upon the scene but their pleadings for quiet could not be heard above the roar of the turmoil, and seeing that protest was useless the faculty members retired. With the police put to rout, the fire men were ordered out but had no sooner coupled their hose to the hydrants, than the students swept them off their feet, made away with the hose and reduced the fire chief to abject terms, as he feared to leave 'the city unprotected without the fire apparatus.

A hurry call was sent to Governor Warner asking that the militia, who were in readiness in their armory, be called out, and bugle calls aunouncing their preparation to march marked the end of the disturbance. Minor injuries were reported among police, students and firemen but no one was seriously hurt. The theatre, however, is a complete wreck.

Later—All the University of Michigan students arrested Monday night are at liberty. Fifteen of them had to furnish $1,000 bail each, after being led into Justice Doty's court and back to their cells handcuffed and under a heavy police guard. Three students pleaded guilty to a charge of loitering and were fined $4.65 each. The fifteen, for whom bail was furnished by Ann Arbor businessmen, will be given a hearing on Friday. There is no indication of a recurrence of Monday night's disturbance."

This version differs from the Cornell account in several instances. The date of the riot is given as Tuesday, March 17, and the origin of the incident did not involve a "special policeman," but an usher at the theater. Moreover, the assault on the student which was supposed to have happened on Saturday, March 14, in the Cornell account occurred on the day of the riot in the AA News account.

In general, though, the overall nature of the incident in the two accounts is the same: there was an assault on a student for some alleged misbehavior by an employee of the theater, and a destructive student response followed, in spite of pleas by President Angell and other faculty members to halt the disturbance.

However, the online history section about the AA police department contains a very different telling of the event:

"One of the biggest events in the early years of the Ann Arbor Police Department was a student riot at the Star Theatre. This riot took place on March 16, 1908.

The riot occurred as the manager of the theatre and a pool room operator, approached a “star” University of Michigan football player and asked him to “throw” a game. The two men would bet heavily on the opposing team, therefore winning a great amount of money, of which the player would receive a share.

The football player refused and this information was kept quiet until the following spring. Somehow students learned about this and told the manager to close the theatre for good. Evidently the students felt so aggrieved that they did not want the theatre operating. The manager did not heed their warning and one week later the theatre was still in operation.

On the evening of March 16, the students assembled downtown and walked to the theatre. When they arrived, they demanded that the manager come outside and speak with them. The manager obviously felt the students wanted to do more than “talk” and ran out the back door of the theatre.

When the manager did not appear, the students began to throw bricks at the windows of the theatre. A building across the street from the theatre was under construction and there were truckloads of bricks sitting in front of the structure.

These bricks were promptly used to destroy the outside of the theatre and once this was done, their anger was turned on the interior. The riot lasted all night and futile efforts were made by police, fire and university officials to stop it. Sixty-two arrests were made and numerous officers received injuries along with torn, damaged and lost uniforms."

This is the only source I've come across for the story that the riot was precipitated by an attempt to bribe a U-M football player, and there's no verifying information provided in the aadl.org account, either. Given that the alleged bribery angle doesn't appear in the contemporaneous account in the Cornell newspaper or in the AA News version, I doubt it's the accurate explanation.

Regardless, it's a historical fact that on a mid-March night in 1908, several scores of Michigan students went on a violent rampage and essentially demolished a prominent local business. The fact that they were apparently let off from prosecution after they paid a then-subtantial amount of damages is interesting in light of the ski resort damage earlier this winter season.

Craig Ross must love scavenger hunts. On yesterday's WTKA MGoBlog Roundtable, he suggested that I look into Wu Tingfang, the Chinese minister who attended a Michigan football game in Detroit at the turn of the century. This is therefore something of a follow-up of the story of the 1925 Michigan-Northwestern game and the riots that followed (LINK).

The New York Times (November 3, 1901) preserves the basic facts (LINK):

MICHIGAN, 22; CARLISLE, 0.

DETROIT, Mich.. Nov. 2.-The University of Michigan defeated the Carlisle Indian School football team at Bennett Park this afternoon before 8,000 people, by the score of 22 to 0. Wu Ting-Fang, Chinese Minister to the United States, occupied one of the boxes with former secretary of War Alger, who, at the close of the game, in response to the demands of the spectators, addressed them, congratulating Michigan on its victory.

Michigan made three touchdowns, Shorts kicking goal twice, and scored five points on a place kick. Two of the touchdowns and the place kick were made in the first half. The Indians braced up wonderfully in the second half, and it was only by the hardest kind of line-bucking that Michigan scored one touchdown. Line-up:

The Carlisle team was then coached by Pop Warner. The program was active from 1893 to 1917, with an all-time record of 173-92-13. (LINK)

So, who was this Mr. Wu? He has his own Wikipedia page (LINK) and is a figure of some historical interest.

Born in 1842, Wu Tingfang was the first Chinese national to become a barrister in England, in 1876; he was then a minister under the Qing dynasty to the US, Spain, and Peru. He supported the Xinghai Revolution and was thereafter an important figure in Chinese politics, even serving briefly as acting premier of the Republic of China in 1917.

While minister to the US, he visited the University of Michigan. Apparently he was friends with President Angell. The 1903 Intercollegian records his visit to the University (LINK):

The Michigensian (LINK) only adds that there was a reception for Mr. Wu on November 1st (the game was on the 2nd) attended by Roosevelt and Temple: I presume the former is President Teddy Roosevelt; any guesses on who Temple is?

Craig mentioned some "ironic comments about race relations" that Wu Tingfang made about the game that he attended. From the November 9, 1901 issue of the School Journal (LINK):

Minister Wu Ting Fang of China witnessed the football game between the University of Michigan and the Carlisle Indians, October 2. It was his first game and he certainly made satisfactory progress in knowledge of the sport. He entered the grand stand just after Michigan had pushed the ball over the line, leaving two redmen overcome on the ground.'

"Are they dead yet?" queried Mr. Wu with polite solicitude, as he surveyed the spectacle.

"Oh, no!" said one of the party's student guides. "Look, they are getting up."

"Marvelous tenacity of life," commented the distiguished visitor. "How many sudden deaths would it take to postpone the game?"

Presently, as the game went on, Mr. Wu became philosophical.

"It is a beautiful thought," he said sententiously, after watching the game fora time, "to think that the fathers of these red men, a few years ago, were being shot down and hunted, and now their sons are taking strides in civilization, are given a helping hand by a mighty government, and, ---"

Just at that moment the Indian full back, scopped in a hot punt, and had started up the field when the two Michigan ends came thundering down on him and dragged him back toward his own goal.

"And," continued Mr. Wu, "taken in the arms of the white man like a brother. There is no discrimination because of his color. It is a truly beautiful thought."

Everybody agreed with Mr. Wu. After the game, won by Michigan, the minister made a little speech of congratulation to the victors, and condolence to the vanquished.

[Mr. Wu] laughed heartily when General Alger suggested that he was the mascot and brought victory to the Wolverine camp.

American sports certainly seemed to have made an impression on the man. Here is a passage from his memoirs (LINK) of his time in the United States:

We have nothing corresponding to tennis and other Western ball games, nor, indeed, any game in which the opposite sexes join. Archery was a health-giving exercise of which modern ideas of war robbed us. The same baneful influence has caused the old-fashioned healthful gymnastic exercises with heavy weights to be discarded. I have seen young men on board ocean-going steamers throwing heavy bags of sand to one another as a pastime. This, though excellent practice, hardly equals our ancient athletic feats with the bow or the heavy weight. Western sports have been introduced into some mission and other schools in China, but I much doubt if they will ever be really popular among my people. They are too violent, and, from the oriental standpoint, lacking in dignity. Yet, when Chinese residing abroad do take up Western athletic sports they prove themselves the equals of all competitors, as witness their success in the Manila Olympiad, and the name the baseball players from the Hawaiian Islands Chinese University made for themselves when they visited America. Nevertheless, were the average Chinese told that many people buy the daily paper in the West simply to see the result of some game, and that a sporting journalism flourishes there, i.e., papers devoted entirely to sport, they would regard the statement as itself a pleasant sport. Personally, I think we might learn much from the West in regard to sports. They certainly increase the physical and mental faculties, and for this reason, if for no other, deserve to be warmly supported. China suffers because her youths have never been trained to team-work. We should be a more united people if as boys and young men we learned to take part in games which took the form of a contest, in which, while each contestant does his best for his own side, the winning or losing of the game is not considered so important as the pleasure of the exercise. I think a great deal of the manliness which I have admired in the West must be attributed to the natural love of healthy sport for sport's sake. Games honestly and fairly played inculcate the virtues of honor, candidness, and chivalry, of which America has produced many worthy specimens. When one side is defeated the winner does not exult over his defeated opponents but attributes his victory to an accident; I have seen the defeated crew in a boat race applauding their winning opponents. It is a noble example for the defeated contestants to give credit to and to applaud the winner, an example which I hope will be followed by my countrymen.

Some notes on the game:

Carlisle was paid $2000 for the game (Gerald Gems, For Pride, Profit and Patriarchy: Football and the Incorporation of American Cultural Values [2000], pp. 119-120)

Michigan had trouble with Carlisle's "move over" play, "in which the entire team is shifted to one side of center, thus confusing and weakening the enemy" (LINK)

Redden, Michigan's left end, "was knocked breathless, but was ready and snxious to play ten minutes after the injury." (LINK)

One of Carlisle's best players, Louis Leroy, didn't play in the game because he deserted the team on the day of the game, something that he did four times while at Carlisle (Jeffrey P. Powers-Beck, The American Indian Integration of Baseball [2004], pp. 105-106)

I'm a big Michigan fan, and also a big fan of the NFL and the Lions. I wanted to follow the NFL combine to see how Devin Funchess, Jake Ryan, and Frank Clark do. Like many people, i read about the "newly important" personality tests, that will supposedly be of great value to NFL scouts. The importance and value of these tests has increased due to the large presence of domestic violence cases in the NFL this season. I just don't believe scouts will really value these tests, and don't believe that they understand the importance of character in a football player.

Our late great coach Bo Schembechler, whom my father actually played for in the early 70s, understood character. He valued every player on the team, from all-american to walk-on. Coach Schembechler would actively work towards building character in every player on his teams. He would personally go to bars on friday nights and do night checks in every player's room, to make sure their lights were out at 11:00 pm. Coach Schembechler once said "When someone uncovers a scandal in their company, I don't think they can say, "I didn't know that was going on." They're just saying they're too dumb to do their job! And if they really are too dumb, then why are they getting paid millions of dollars to do it? They know what's going on.”

What Coach Schembechler was saying is that people have to take responsibility for all their actions. He was saing that if someone screws up, they have to on up to what they did, and if they don't, they don't deserve to play at a higher level. Now, i see that Frank Clark is blaming his domestic dispute on his girlfriend. What Clark said goes against Coach Schembechler directly. If Coach Schembechler had found out what Frank Clark did, or what Brendan Gibbons did last year, he wouldn't fret over them, just to win a few more games. He would kick them off the team on the day itself! You don't see a lot of football coaches like Coach Schembechler anymore. Nowaday's, coaches are preoccupied in winning more than character, and that's a huge problem.

Nowaday's, with the exception of this season, coaches play players who get into problems. They don't spend enough time to get to know a player, so they don't know if he has good character. A great example, albeit not a recent one, is Eugene Robinson. The night before Super Bowl XXXIII, Robinson won the Bart Starr award for "outstanding character and leadership both on and off the field." He solicited a prostitute that very same night. While any other person would be in jail, Robinson was allowed to play, and played awfully. His falcons lost, and he would go on to return the award. Coaches don't spend enough time evaluating the character of their players; they just want to win.

I'm disgusted that Frank Clark got invited to the Combine. If you read the police reports, his domestic dispute looked especially heinous. While he's taking personality tests, Devin Gardner is going to be working out and doing everything he can to be drafted. Devin Gardner deserved the invitation that Frank Clark got, but now has to sit at home, getting texts from Jake Ryan and Devin Funchess about the combine. Heck, Devin will probably be working out when those guys are doing drills at the combine. Guys like Devin, who have great character (most notably what he did for J.T. Barett) aren't rewarded for character. They have little chance of getting drafted, and try their hardest in their limted amount of time with scouts, but still aren't rewarded. Roger Goodell hasn't made any of this better. He promises that the NFL will represent a higher standard, and that he will try to fix these issues that we've seen in the last year, but the only thing that's come about from this are these personality tests.